


out of dark, to the day’s rising

by sapphire_child



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Action/Adventure, Angst, Community: then_theres_us, F/M, Fluff, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Locked In, Near Death Experiences, Romance, Word Games
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-09-11
Updated: 2010-09-11
Packaged: 2019-01-28 20:59:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,413
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12615380
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sapphire_child/pseuds/sapphire_child
Summary: If it weren’t for the fact that their danger of freezing to death is only marginally higher than their dying of boredom then they probably would have stopped pacing their way around the edges of the room a while back now. But the Doctor, of course, is keeping an eye out for any other route of escape.





	out of dark, to the day’s rising

**Author's Note:**

> Prompted by [](https://mahmfic.livejournal.com/profile)[**mahmfic**](https://mahmfic.livejournal.com/) (Near-death experience) and [](https://juliet316.livejournal.com/profile)[](https://juliet316.livejournal.com/)**juliet316** (blue).

_06:40:00_

It’s the biggest meat works this end of the galaxy and the freezers all work in tandem, the doors on an automatic timer to let the robot workers in to distribute and collect their allocated supplies of meat.

Meat which is still being supplied to the public despite the fact that the herd animals of choice on this particular planet are falling ill one by one and the disease has now started affecting those who eat them. “Like Mad Cow disease?” Rose had wondered out loud. “Or foot and mouth? Only, you know, they’re not...cows.”

In any case, it’s well below zero inside the freezer.

And the Doctor and Rose are trapped inside.

“Tell you what, I could go some thermal underwear right about now!” Rose chatters, grinning at him despite the frigid cold. The Doctor pauses in his soniccing of the control panel to shrug out of his overcoat and when he hands it to her she immediately wraps herself up in it like a caterpillar.

When he finishes with his soniccing she stops hopping from foot to foot and peers hopefully at him.

“So? Can you open it then?”

“Apparently the doors have been deadlock sealed so the meat can’t be disturbed during the freezing process,” his breath mists as he speaks and even with his superior physiology he can obviously feel the bite of cold through his suit. “We’ve got at least six hours in here so until then we’re just going to have to try and keep warm.”

Rose looks at him in dismay. “How’re we gonna do that? It’s like Antarctica in here!”

“Oh I’ve got a few ideas.” He says, grinning winningly at her and she looks back at him with wide eyes.

“Really?”

“Start with a bit of a walk maybe?” he suggests. “I might even have a Frisbee somewhere in my pockets...”

Rose visibly relaxes as he starts hunting through them. “Oh. Yeah. S’pose there’s not much else to do.”

She offers her arm and he abandons his search for the Frisbee, letting her snug into his side as they begin to circumnavigate the room together, his coat dragging out behind her.

_06:19:29_

“A is for...apple.”

“B is for banana.”

“I _knew_ you were going to say that. C is for...carrot.”

“D is for...are we going fruits or vegetables?”

“Dunno. Both?”

“Brilliant. D is for Dyjolufuu.”

“Oh come on, you made that up.”

He looks honestly offended at the implication. “Rose Tyler I did not!”

“You so did!”

“Did not!”

“Did too!”

“Did not! I’ll have you know that Dyjolufuu is considered a delicacy in the Backardin galaxy! I’ll take you there and _prove_ it if you don’t believe me.”

“Whatever. Let’s start again yeah? A is for artichoke.”

“B for blueberries.”

“C is for...hey, d’you reckon my lips have turned blue yet?”

She purses her lips and breathes out a hush of air between them that turns white in the air. He inspects them with a cursory glance.

“Not yet. We’ve only been in here for just over an hour anyway.”

“Okay.” She says and smacks her lips together. They’re already becoming chapped from the cold air. “Jus’ checking.”

_05:17:59_

They’ve moved on from alphabet games to numbers and then from numbers to her teaching him children’s songs (mainly because he thinks that recreational mathematic is fun and Rose does not). If it weren’t for the fact that their danger of freezing to death is only marginally higher than their dying of boredom then they probably would have stopped pacing their way around the edges of the room a while back now. But the Doctor, of course, is keeping an eye out for any other route of escape. A duct or vent large enough for a person to slip through has not eventuated. Nor has any means of triggering an emergency alarm to let someone know that they’re trapped.

And so he prompts her to think of another song, another nursery rhyme. When she runs out of those he starts up a rousing chorus of Bohemian Rhapsody, then American Pie. She doesn’t know all the words and is getting a bit breathless in the thin, cold air, but Rose still jumps in where she can and laughs her way through the rest of it.

His voice becomes higher and higher, finally cracking under the strain and Rose laughs again but he doesn’t.

They’re fast running out of options to keep themselves amused and there’s only so long humans can survive in cold this extreme, even with the correct clothing.

So what next?

_04:39:19_

They have moved on entirely from the verbal to physical with a spirited game of tag. Rose suspects it’s because she started teasing him about his singing. In reality he’s just trying to think of ways to keep her circulation going and her brain alert without her realising what he’s doing. Unfortunately between the superior grip on his plimsolls and his long legs he’s managed to evade becoming ‘it’ for a good ten minutes or so now and Rose is getting frustrated with all the taunts he’s throwing at her from the endless corners of the cavernous freezer space.

“Can we stop a while maybe?” she yells out but there’s no answer and a sudden fear grips her. What if they’re not alone in here? What if something else got trapped in here too? Or the virus has the ability to spread through the air now? “Doctor? Doctor!”

When someone grabs the hood of her jacket from behind she screams so loud that it seems to fill the whole space.

The Doctor meanwhile, is cracking up.

“Gotcha!” he hoots and before she can even recover enough to tag him back he’s off and running again.

“Oh you are going _down_ mister!” she declares and immediately charges after him.

She’s barely taken two steps when she hits the slippery patch.

There’s a sickening moment where the floor seems to disappear out from underneath her feet and then Rose is hitting the ground. Hard. Her ankle curls beneath her awkwardly as she falls and she hears a disconcerting _snap_ followed swiftly by the shocking impact of the ice-hard floor against her side.

She’s winded and her right ankle throbs hard with pain the likes of which she’s only felt several times before. She’s done a ligament probably – maybe a bone if she’s really lucky. Her shoulder aches too, from where she fell on it, and her ribs hurt all down the same side.

She lets out a dry, shocked sob and the Doctor’s laughter stops immediately.

“Rose?” He calls, tentative. “You alright?”

“No I’m bloody not!” she snaps before biting down on her lip to stop herself from crying. Never did anyone any good, crying. But jeez her ankle is _killing_ her...

He’s there a moment later, eyes wide with concern and he kneels down and examines her ankle with all the gentleness and precision of a real doctor.

“Best to keep your boot on,” he advises. “It’ll help keep the swelling down. Stay here, I’ll go get my coat to keep you warm.”

Rose nods as she grits her teeth and tries to find a more comfortable way to sit on the ice-hard concrete.

_04:00:38_

It takes the Doctor twenty minutes to find his coat and Rose shivers in the darkness and wonders if this is what people felt like during the ice age – hiding out in caves and waiting for the warmth to come back into the world. She hears the Doctor growing more and more frustrated as he fails to find his prize and when he finally returns with it he arranges it around her trembling body with tender hands that aren’t the least bit clumsy from the cold.

_03:35:51_

“S’freezin’.” Rose observes, teeth chattering again.

“Yeah,” the Doctor agrees mildly, absently rubbing at his arms. “It is a bit.”

“No I mean, s’gettin’ _colder_.”

“That’s just your own body temperature going down,” the Doctor explains. Her lips are indeed blue now, despite being wrapped up in his pinstriped jacket and his overcoat to boot. The problem is that she’s been sitting on this cold floor for too long now and there is nothing in here nor in his pockets to burn. Otherwise he would have started a fire with his sonic. “I shouldn’t have made you play that stupid game.” He says, looking away from her in disgust.

“S’alright. Doesn’t matter,” Rose decides as she closes her eyes and leans against him tiredly. “M’so tired...”

“Don’t fall asleep.” he jostles her upright again and she mumbles in protest. “Last thing we need is you falling asleep. You might never wake up again in this cold.”

Rose blinks slowly at him, mascara eyelashes fluttering. “The cold’s makin’ me sleepy?”

“Something like that.” he says, suppressing his own shiver at the thought of her falling asleep in this freezer beside him and never waking up again.

He isn’t expecting the look of guilt that crosses her face.

“You’re cold.” She protests.

“I’m alright,” he says quickly, knowing what she’s going to do before she even moves. “Rose...”

“No hang on...” Rose shuffles closer, gasping as she opens the overcoat and the cold air floods in to chill her.

“Rose...” he protests but she’s already wrestling it off her shoulders with clumsy hands. He tries to stop her, to press the coat back onto her personage, but she stubbornly lays it over both of them. Underneath the suede and the silk lining she snuggles in close to him and despite the fact that it’s so bloody cold her body heat instantly starts to warm him up. He sighs, puts an arm around her, and cuddles her back. “I’ll see if I can’t raise my core temperature a bit,” he tells her. “Keep us both warm.”

She only mumbles in response.

_02:36:26_

He opens his eyes with a snap, only to find that sometime in the last hour his body has seemingly gone into some sort of heat preserving hibernation he didn’t even know he had the ability to go into. Unfortunately, this means that he’s been leaching off Rose’s warmth and not giving any back to her. She is motionless beside him, so still and pale that for a moment he fears the worst. But no, there is the smallest wisp of air coming from between her parted lips and her chest is rising and falling shallowly.

Her skin is colder than ice. Colder than his own skin. Her pulse beats sluggishly beneath his touch and his own quickens.

She is dying. She is freezing to death and once he had thought that to see her burn would have been the worst, the most awful...

Well he’d never seen her succumb to cold until now, had he?

_01:28:41_

He spends the better part of an hour trying to rouse her. He dresses her in all but his pants, trousers and shoes (yes, he even sacrifices his socks) and then carries her to the door. They should be opening soon and he needs to get her out before she is completely taken over by hypothermia.

He is shuddering now, shivering with the cold even as he concentrates on raising his body temperature as high as he possible can. He wraps himself around her as best he can, his bare skin burning and freezing all at once in the frigid air. He grits his teeth, ignores his body as it screams at him – _too hot! Too much!_

_You’ll burn._

They are discovered by one of the drones and when they finally reach medical assistance the attending medic can’t quite believe that someone who is developing all the symptoms of heatstroke could have possibly spent seven hours in one of the freezers.

_-18:02:23_

Rose is severely dehydrated, has torn a ligament in her ankle and has a touch of frost nip but she is safe.

And _alive_.

“If you hadn’t been there...” the medic tells him pointedly as the Doctor agonises over the fact that he let them get trapped in the damned freezer in the first place.

She could have died in there. She nearly _did_ die in there. And what sort of end would that have been for Rose? A slow consumption by ice crystals, glaciers tearing through her veins and stoppering her slow beating heart...

It doesn’t bear much thinking about.

In the aftermath of his recovery from something embarrassingly close to heatstroke (and once he’s sure Rose is going to be _completely_ alright) he sorts out what the problem is with the not-cattle. A bit of time spent in their research labs, a few tests carried out on the TARDIS and the meatworks is well on its way to being back in business again.

He’s not sure if he should be pleased by this or not.

Rose wakes up, groggy, and immediately calls for him, her face lighting up when his face comes into focus over her. Normally he’d be delighted at the sight, but even Rose Tyler’s smile doesn’t change the fact that she’s lying in an alien hospital hooked up to machines and tubes and an IV bag with her damaged ankle wrapped in a clean white bandage – frostbitten toes peeking out the end.

And it’s _his fault_.

Shamed, he takes hold of a weak, pale, Rose Tyler hand and bends his forehead to touch it.

His eyes squeeze shut and his voice breaks over his apology.

“You nearly died.”

His lip trembles for a moment and then stills and he’s sure she can hear the accusation that he’s just laid upon himself, the blame.

To his surprise, she musters the strength to squeeze his hand back.

“An’ you didn’t?” she says and her voice is forgiveness and warmth and when he dares to meet her gaze _it’s okay Doctor, I’m safe. And that’s all down to you I reckon._

He takes a moment to be utterly humbled.

“Am I right?” she presses, voice slurring slightly and eyes drooping already with exhaustion.

He doesn’t answer until she’s slipped back under.

 _Rose_ – he breathes it against her forehead, traces his lips down to the corner of her eye and places a delicate kiss against a dark smudge of mascara. It comes away a little, flaky and chemical on his lips.

And most miraculously of all - _warm_.


End file.
